Automate developer workflows

Use App Builder to create dynamic, user-friendly forms to collect inputs from developers. Call Datadog’s Actions from your app to initiate API calls to external services, perform custom logic, or data transformations. Orchestrate end-to-end processes of multiple actions using Workflow Automation. Integrate them with Datadog’s Software Catalog to enable dynamic and self-service workflows.

Create software template workflows

To use software templates in Datadog, create a Git repository with the desired template. You can start from scratch or use our quickstart blueprints to learn from an example.

Start from an example

Navigate to App Builder Blueprints and select one of the following blueprints. These are examples of how to configure an App or Workflow to help you get started. You can make updates to the examples to fit your needs, such as configuring inputs, setting up integrations with source code management or cloud providers, and configuring permissions.

Scaffold New Service

The Scaffold New Service blueprint shows an example of scaffolding a new lambda function from a template. The form captures inputs from a developer that will be passed into the corresponding Git repo.

1. From the app, customize the form to include the parameters you want to capture from your developers.
2. Click Save as New App to save the app. This will also create a corresponding templating workflow.

Create S3 bucket with Terraform

The Create S3 Bucket blueprint shows an example of how to generate Terraform code for an S3 bucket using a form in GitHub.

Provision Kubernetes cluster

The Provision EKS Cluster blueprint shows an example of how to generate Terraform code for a Kubernetes cluster in GitHub.

Provision RDS instance

The Provision RDS Instance blueprint shows an example of how to provision an RDS instance through direct integration with AWS.

Start from scratch

Navigate to the Workflow Automation page to configure the template in Datadog.

1. Create a form for the developer-facing frontend using App Builder:

   • Navigate to Actions > App Builder and select New App.
   • Enter a name and description, and use the drag-and-drop editor to create a form that collects the required parameters for your template.
   • You can leverage the Form component or build a custom UI.
   • After your UI is done, select New Query, and use the Trigger workflow action to call your templating workflow and pass in the relevant parameters. You can also explore the available integrations in the Actions Catalog or leverage the HTTP action to interact with any integrations not provided out of the box.
   • Create a Button that submits the form, triggers your workflow, and passes in the parameters for the template.
   • Save and publish the app.

2. Create a workflow for your template:

   • From the Workflow Automation page, click New Workflow.
   • Enter a name, add relevant tags, and define the input parameters you want to collect from users.

3. Configure the templating workflow:

   • Use GitHub, Gitlab, or HTTP actions to retrieve your template files.
   • Use the Apply Template action to manipulate your template repository and pass in your input parameters.
   • Use GitHub, Gitlab, or HTTP actions to upload the project files to the repository.
   • Save the workflow.

4. Test your App and Workflow:
   • Click View App to view the app on a standalone page in a preview.
   • Track the success of the workflow templating process in Workflow Automation.

Publishing your App

When you have finished setting up and testing up your App, you can publish it for your team members to use. The publishing flow prompts you to define permissions and then allows you to add your App to a Dashboard or to the Self-Service portal.

Available Software Catalog Actions

Below is a list of actions available for Software Catalog in Datadog App Builder and Workflow Automation. You can see a full list of in the Action Catalog.

• Templating
  • “Apply template” to pass in parameters to a set of files
• Github
  • “Create or update file” to create new files
  • “Edit configuration file” to manipulate YAML or JSON files
  • “Trigger GitHub Actions workflow run” to initiate a GitHub Action
  • “Search repositories” to return a list of repositories
  • “Create pull request” to open a pull request
• Retrieve Service Information
  • “Get service definition” for a single service
  • “List service definitions” to get all definitions from Datadog Software Catalog
  • “Get service dependencies” to get a service’s immediate upstream and downstream services
• Incident Triage
  • “Get service PagerDuty on call”
  • When integrated with other actions, you can trigger workflows based on critical events (for example, execute runbooks).
• Private Actions
  • To interact with private resources, use the Private Action Runner.

Further reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:

Remediate incidents faster with App BuilderBLOG Learn about App BuilderDOCUMENTATION Learn about WorkflowsDOCUMENTATION